The goal of this project is to make advocacy services, and in particular, the Wisconsin Grievance Procedure accessible to all mentally disabled clients. This pilot approach will provide proactive advocacy which is defined as assisting clients who are unable to adequately express their needs, problems and grievances, in addition acting in behalf of clients who are totally incapable of expressing themselves. The advocate will provide the least intervention possible to avoid teaching acceptance of helplessness to clients. The PA instead will provide learning experiences which empower clients to act in their own behalf insofar as possible. Service units will be chosen at a Center for the Developmentally Disabled and at a Mental Health Institute. These units will be matched with units at equivalent institutions. Clients will be relatively communicative developmentally disabled persons, as well as mentally disabled children and youth. The Proactive Advocate (PA) will contact clients; be available to teach self-advocacy skills to groups of clients; and receive complaints while making routine visits to units; meet with parents and significant others of those unable to articulate their needs; interview all incoming clients on units to determine their ability to file grievances in their own behalf, and interview clients who have never previously grieved to determine their ability to do so. A procedure for determination of level of ability to communicate will be devised. The PA will facilitate presentation of complainant when the client is unable, obtain consent and guard confidentiality, assist in the preparation of evidence favorable to the client's case, and act as advocate-spokesperson at informal conferences and Hearings regarding grievances. The PA will have access to all records and facilities. Data collected will indicate the effectiveness of the approach as measured by client satisfaction with the process and solutions; by institutional cooperation, by the increase in number in problems resolved, and by the number of solutions favoring the client's request, as compared with the matched units on which no PA is employed.